


Cognitive Re-calibration

by its_not_my_fault



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 21:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13175352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_not_my_fault/pseuds/its_not_my_fault
Summary: Bucky wakes up to discover a new threat on the way. He figures he should be pointed at Thanos's army like the weapon he's been programmed to be. Natasha has other ideas.Big Damn Table Prompts: Trust





	Cognitive Re-calibration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shanachie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanachie/gifts).



> Ahhh, Shanachie asked for (I'm paraphrasing) "Bucky and Cuddles"... this isn't that. But it has Bucky!
> 
> I attempted to edit this, but it is unbeta'ed. Sorry for my terrible attempt at Russian.

James Buchanan Barnes had been cautiously optimistic when he’d come out of the cryogenesis and was awake and aware enough to process that he was awake, but the expression on Steve’s face had quickly laid that to rest. Bucky propped himself up in the hospital bed, careful of the IV in his arm. Glancing around the bland room, he saw that Tony was there too, looking beaten. The fire that had been in Tony’s eyes the last time they’d seen each other--the last time they’d fought--was gone. In its place was something else. Something resigned and almost melancholy. Bucky wasn’t really a fan of Iron Man, but he didn’t think the trust fund baby’s expression was a good sign. Okay, trust fund baby was a little unfair, but Tony had tried to kill him, and the worst part was that Bucky figured he probably deserved it.  
  
“Do you want the good news, the bad news, or the worst news first?” T’Challa’s smooth voice and curling accent made the words beautiful even though Bucky already knew he wasn’t going to like what the man had to say next.  
  
“Have--” Bucky’s voice rasped, so he attempted to clear it. He wondered how long he’d been out. Tony looked aged, but it was the air around him and the lack of arrogance, not a change in physical features. He tried again, still scratchy but steadier. “Have you found a way to deprogram me?”  
  
“That is the good news and also the bad news,” Steve spoke for the first time. “We have an implant that should stop the signals from reaching your brain and activating the Winter Soldier, but…”  
  
“It’s experimental at best. We’d be putting something in your brain, and that’s always risky.” Bucky frowned at the new voice coming from a face he didn’t recognize--a face belonging to a man wearing an honest-to-God cape and an outfit better suited to monks or Jedi masters. “It’s up to you whether or not you think it is worth the risk of paralysis or death.”  
  
Steve’s jaw ticked. Bucky felt his lips twitch, but he did his best not to smirk at his best friend’s frustration. Now was not the time. Apparently, Steve had caught the twitch because his expression had shifted just enough to be fondly exasperated.  
  
Much as Bucky wanted to stay in a moment of friendship and comradery, the kind of thing he’d sorely missed for seventy-five years, he pulled himself back to the questions at hand.  
  
“What’s the worst news?”  
  
“We have a new enemy. His name is Thanos, and he makes Loki, Ultron, and every other mass army and power we’ve ever fought combined seem like a bully on a school playground.” Tony did have a way with words, didn’t he?  
  
Bucky let the words wash over him. It was likely that even if he did survive the implant that the world was doomed to fall anyway. So, choices.  
  
“Maybe you should activate me instead. Send me after his armies.”  
  
“No.” Steve’s voice was fitting of a captain of the army, but this wasn’t his call.  
  
“It’s my choice,” Bucky insisted.  
  
“Still no,” Steve shot back.  
  
“This isn’t helpful.” T’challa interrupted. “The man needs rest, and he may have an important decision to make. We have pushed Thanos back long enough to give him the night to decide what he wishes to do.” The King of Wakanda turned to Steve. “And it will be his choice.”  
  
Steve's jaw ticked, and it made Bucky smile. “I really don’t need time to decide.”  
  
“You’re taking it anyway, or so help me I will knock you unconscious with my shield.”  
  
Bucky smirked. “Okay, Rogers.” Most everyone filed out of the room. Everyone except cape man.  
  
“My name is Doctor Stephen Strange, and if you’d like, I could search for a magical option to the problem.”  
  
“A doctor of magic; take a little nap and suddenly there’s actual magic in the world. How’s a fella supposed to keep up?”  
  
“I’m a medical Doctor. Thank you. But yes, also a master of magic.”  
  
Bucky hummed thoughtfully. “I’ll bet you're real fussy about that Doctor bit.” The good doctor gave him an even more disapproving look than he had been sporting moments before. Bucky decided it would be best to change the subject. “How long have I been under?”  
  
“About two years.”  
  
“Well, that’s not so bad I guess. Thanks for the offer Doctor Magic. Perhaps if the world doesn’t end in the next battle for earth, I’ll take you up on that offer.”  
  
The doctor nodded and disappeared in a show of light.  
  
Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. “Actual magic without science or aliens or genetic modification or experiments gone wrong. Okay. Just another thing on the list.” He sighed. T’Challa had mentioned rest, but what he really wanted was food. Glancing around he found a call button and pressed it in hopes that it would bring a nurse and not the entirety of the Avengers and the army of Wakanda into his room.  
  
It was only a few minutes before a woman sauntered in bringing the smell of beef stew and fresh bread with her.  
  
“Добрый день Наталия.”  
  
“Как поживаешь?” She asked him.  
  
“That’s a great question. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”  
  
“You’re doing that well, huh?” She asked as she set a tray in front of him. The steam coming off the stew was almost as comforting as the smell. His stomach rumbled instantly, and Natasha laughed lightly at him. It amazed him that she could be so kind when she was always so tough. It was especially surprising that she’d be so gentle with him. Their last encounters did not leave her without bruises.  
  
“I tend not to hold their actions against people when they’ve been under mind control.”  
  
“Did you develop the ability to read minds?”  
  
“No, just body language. Listen, I might have a suggestion on that front, actually.”  
  
“Besides magic and life-risking brain implants?”  
  
She smirked, cocky and pleased and sexy as hell. Her smile could cut diamonds if she wanted and here she was helping him instead. Something eased in his chest at the thought.  
  
“We were able to let the Hulk loose on the world and bring him back down when we needed Banner back. And I think the same might work for you.”  
  
“You mean until he ran away.”  
  
“Well, yeah, but he didn’t hurt anyone either. Just ran away.” There was something bittersweet about her words and the words echoed through him. He was beginning to realize just how similar the two of them might be. “I heard you were willing to be activated and used against Thanos’s army so I thought you may be interested in hearing a way I might have to bring you back.”  
  
“What’s the catch?”  
  
“It’s pretty similar programming process to get you back as it is to flip you into assassin mode.”  
  
“So you’d be programming me, and I’d have to trust you to not turn me into yet another version of The Winter Soldier. I’d have to trust you to bring me back.”  
  
“You’d have to trust me, yes.” She didn’t look away, didn’t flinch. He wasn’t sure if she was daring him to work with her, but it sure felt like it. Everything about her posture and her eyes told him she was warning him to be afraid of her. She was the breakable one. The one who didn’t have super strength or super healing or even Tony’s suit to shield her from him and not only did she not fear him, but she thought he should be afraid of her.  
  
“Just you?”  
  
“Yeah, just me.”  
  
Well, he’d be damned if he was going to start turning down direct challenges now.  
  
“I can do that.”  
  
Bucky spent the next few hours wandering around the hospital-like area that T'Challa had him set up in, jumping every time Natasha petted his wrist or pressed her fingers to his hands or brushed her palm along the back of his neck. She did it randomly when he was eating or when they were checking over his prosthetic arm to make sure there wasn’t any damage. He didn’t experience the touches to the metal arm the same way the rest of his body did, but it still startled him when she skimmed her fingers down the cold metal.  
  
Natasha said it was to train his body to respond to her or something. Bucky didn’t really understand what she was saying, but he wasn’t sure she didn’t have another reason too. He saw an amused glint in her eyes, and occasionally there’d be a twitch at the edge of the right side of her mouth that suggested maybe she was laughing at him a little bit too. Bucky expected to be frustrated, perhaps even angry about her laughing at his expense, but instead… well, it was a lot like what he used to do to Steve and somehow getting that taste of his own medicine made him feel nostalgic and a lot happier than he’d been in a lot of decades.  
  
That lovely feeling was quickly gone when Natasha announced. “Steve is going to stay here while I say the code, and we’re going to try to bring you back. You ready?”  
  
“No!”  
  
Right before Natasha started the sequence. Bucky could feel the words taking over. He could feel the edges of his mind graying and falling away, and he wanted to scream. All he could think was No! And then he was sunk into that void. He hated this place, it was like sleeping but being aware of it and unable to wake up properly or move, a nightmare he couldn’t escape. He wanted to scream.  
  
“AHHHH!” The sound startled him, and it cut off sharply. He’d moved too. There was still a layer of not fully here-ness, something weird, but this wasn’t the same as the other times he’d gone under. “What?” He heard his own voice. At that moment the strangeness started to fade, and his sense of being himself returned.  
  
“Just a little… Cognitive re-calibration. I guess you’d say,” Natasha said. It wasn’t a simple twitch at the edge of her lips this time; no she was fully smirking at him now.  
  
“So I’m… free?” He was nothing short of astonished.  
  
Natasha gave him a real genuine smile this time. “Yeah, Bucky,” she nodded, “I think you’re free.”  
  
Before Bucky realized what he was doing, he’d swept her into a hug and twirled her. He set her down as gently as he could but made sure that she didn’t see the glare he threw Steve’s way for the knowing grin his old friend was giving him.  
  
But he needed to thank Steve too. He’d missed his friend for too many years. Natasha stepped back and let him hug Steve. “Thank you, brother.”  
  
“Yeah, this was all Nat.”  
  
“Still.”  
  
“I missed you,” Steve told him solemnly.  
  
“I missed you too.”  
  
Bucky knew he would never be the same man he’d been seventy-five years ago again, but some part of the terrible weight he’d been carrying lifted, and he was damn near jubilant. He swept up Nat again in one arm and pulled Steve close with the other. He felt them both give into the hug, first Steve, then Natasha and Bucky knew his own smile stretched farther than it had in seven decades.  
  
“Seriously, thank you both.”


End file.
